What to Do When Someone Dies

Starred review from April 26, 2021
This excellent standalone from the pseudonymous French (House of Correction) opens as London furniture restorer Ellie Falkner learns that her husband, Greg Manning, has died in a car crash that also killed his female passenger, married party planner Milena Livingstone, who’s unknown to Ellie and Greg’s friends, family, and colleagues. Others conclude he was having an affair, but Ellie needs to know for sure. When she stops by Milena’s offices hoping to glean more information, Ellie impulsively introduces herself to the firm’s co-owner, Frances Shaw, as a casual acquaintance of Milena’s, Gwen Abbott (actually the name of a friend) and offers to help. Shaw soon trusts “Gwen” to be alone in the office. Though her search of Milena’s papers and emails neither proves nor disproves Greg’s fidelity, it suggests the car crash was no accident. Obsessed, embroiled in deception, and unable to move forward, Ellie may destroy her own life before she understands Greg’s. Taut prose and psychological insight make Ellie’s quest both moving and suspenseful. French, the husband-and-wife team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, doesn’t disappoint. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary.

May 1, 2021
French delivers another ingenious plot, continuing her run of fine stand-alone psychological thrillers (after House of Correction, 2020). When Ellie Falkner's husband, Greg, dies in a car crash, her perfect life is shattered. The situation is made worse by the fact he was not alone. The body of a woman named Milena Livingstone is also found in the wreck. Although rumors of his infidelity immediately begin to fly, Ellie, on a "conveyor belt of grief," refuses to accept what seems so obvious. She soon finds that proving that someone was involved in an affair is simple, while proving the opposite is something else again. Ellie insinuates herself under an assumed identity at Milena's party-planning firm. Following several unexpected twists, she becomes a murder suspect when she finds a dead body. The police and Ellie's friends are baffled by her behavior. Reading like a primer on what not to do when the level of suspicion and doubt around you escalates relentlessly, this book is a page-turner that many readers will likely devour in one sitting.

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